Superb fairywren

Malurus cyaneus

by Ian Tallach

It’s all a-fluster at the Don and Donna show this evening.

There is barely time to blow-dry hair, apply makeup or read the autocues - the countdown has begun.

‘Shit, Donna! We’re on in 90 seconds.’

‘You’re joking! OK, deep breaths… smile… show them your teeth...,’ she intones, whilst wriggling and pouting seven times, as per the countdown ritual.

‘It’s alright. You look divine – you blonde bombshell, you - really divine.’

‘Flattery will get you everywhere, Don. No-where you haven’t been, mind.’

‘Ha! Don’t crack me up. You ready for this?’

‘Yeah, good to go. This first guy - another zitty kid gone viral, right?’

Don reflexly clutches at the knot on his tie. ‘Ehm, sort of… not exactly, though... want me to do this one, Donna?’

She shakes her head emphatically and takes a deep breath through her nose. ‘Na, I’ve decided to feel good today. I’m gonna wing this.’

‘YOU BOTH READY?’ (This from behind the camera.) ‘SHOW STARTS IN TEN!’

‘Donna - I think I’d better...’

‘It’s OK, Don. I’m all over this. Pitch in if you need to.’

‘3 … 2 … 1 ... WE’RE LIVE!’

‘Good evening humans!’ She beams

‘Good evening, homo sapiens.’ He smiles a little less convincingly.

‘Good evening, fellow-sojourners.’ She seems to be enjoying herself tonight. ‘Our first guest this evening is a man of influence. His unlikely meme, the Superb fairywren, has well and truly broken through - it’s become a massive hit on social media. At just fourteen, it seems he’s influenced a generation. Well, let’s see if that’s true. Please welcome Farhood Kazar!’

The curtains part to reveal a mixed-race boy in a lime-green tracksuit, blinking in the glare.     

‘Well, don’t be shy – come and sit with us!’ She beckons.

He ambles down those well-trodden steps and languorously makes his way in their direction, hands thrust deep in pockets. As he moves, the shadow cast by his abundant hair becomes a huge, near-perfect circle on the wall behind him.

‘Welcome, Farhood. Good to have you on the show, tonight.’

He slouches on the couch and stares into the camera, but somehow seems oblivious to everything. This is not good. Has he taken something?

Precious seconds of air-time pass. The tension mounts.

‘Farhood?’

‘Thank you’ he says at last, taking in the audience. ‘Do you mind if I start by correcting you on three points?’

Donna cringes, wondering how she could have made that many. ‘Ehm… yes - please do.’ Her smile is, so far, undiminished.  

‘You’re right in saying there’s been a lot of social media attention, but Superb fairywren has zero presence there – none whatsoever. There’s no website, either.’ His voice has an uncanny assurance for one still in the throes of puberty. He continues - ‘And secondly, there is no meme. It’s the opposite of a meme. We exist to crush memes, bust algorithms, act against hardwiring.’

It’s astonishing - this kid’s vocabulary. Where’d he LEARN these words?! 

Donna looks baffled. Don interjects - ‘Thank you, Farhood. Just out of curiosity - how have people discovered you? Do you advertise?’

‘No - word gets around.’

Don raises one eyebrow. ’And the Superb fairywren… what are you - a movement, a society… a political party?’ 

‘That’s for the members to decide. So far, ‘Superb fairywren’ - without the ‘the’ - works fine. Describing it more would dilute the idea.’ His tuneful drawl is just within the realms of comprehensibility. The accent is unplaceable – London grime meets Sub-Saharan hip-hop, maybe.    

Donna has a lightbulb moment - ‘You said there were three points you wanted to correct me on.’ The challenge is thinly disguised.

‘Oh, yes - three. My name isn’t Farhood. It’s Farhod.’  Peels of laughter ring out from the audience.

Donna checks her cue-cards and dispenses with the effort to conceal them. ‘But Farhod - sorry about your name, by the way - you have the most social media attention of anyone under eighteen… worldwide! And you have nothing to do with the internet?!’

The audience takes a collective breath.  

‘That’s right.’ Farhod smiles. ‘People are hungry for reality, flesh and blood, spon-ta-ne-ity… stuff like that.’ (It sounds like he’s trying out these words for the first time – and enjoying the taste of them.) ‘My generation’s getting tired of algorithms playing us like puppets, like we’re nothing more than market targets. If Superb fairywren has brought people together, that’s only ‘coz it’s been a sort of a salvation… for me. Maybe it is for them as well.’

‘OK, Farhod.’ Donna blinks rapidly. ‘I confess I’m a bit lost. Is the Wren a bird?’ 

‘I’m glad you asked about that.’ More laughter - it seems he’s taken ownership of the whole studio, even if he evidently doesn’t care. Perhaps because of that. ‘OK, so it’s like this – I noticed everything I bought for a whole year was in response to advertising on my phone. The algorithms had me by the… tenders.’

Don snorts and pretends to blow his nose. Farhod ignores him.

‘I spent morning, noon and night - often all night - on my phone. I didn’t have any real friendships or relationships - not even with my family. We were all in our own little worlds. I’ve got cousins in Australia. We went to see them last year. During the journey, my phone died; I almost did as well!’

The audience are leaning forward now.

‘I went out for a walk and for the first time EVER noticed that the sand, the sea, the sky, the trees, the hills were beautiful. Can you BELIEVE - a thirteen-year-old who’s never noticed any of that?! I’m serious - when all you care about is your next like, your following, your profile, your reviews, life takes a second place.

‘Good point, Farhod, but the Wren?’ Donna titters nervously.

‘Oh, yeah!‘ he chuckles. ‘On the path to the beach, I’m followed by this bird, with a sticky-up tail… like the wrens we have here… but this one has a bright-blue face as well. I’m a bit spooked… because it’s not! It doesn’t flinch at nothing… just keeps hopping… goes on past like I’m not even there.

‘Back at my cousin’s place, I asked about it. ‘Oh, that’s the Superb fairywren, they told me… so I looked it up - that’s when the world changed for me. You see, behaviour is hardwired. We are conditioned. De-ter-min-ism, they call it - that’s a new word to me.’ He looks over at the crowd, who seem to offer in return a warm, united smile. ‘BUT, the Superb Fairy Wren sort of gives me hope. See, through millions of years of evolution, the Cuckoo - bastard of a bird…… Am I allowed to swear?’

Don and Donna shrug and turn towards the audience, who nod as one.

Farhod continues - ‘The Cuckoo gets much smaller birds to incubate its eggs and rear its chicks. It just buggers off, and watches from a distance. Those tiny birds are hardwired to look after the biggest egg. Their own chicks die. But damned if they don’t feed the Cuckoo!’ 

‘So… this is a sort of ironic name for your group?’ Don suggests.

‘Well, yeah - but not in the way that you think. It’s ironic because… this bird has chosen to LEAVE Superb Fairy-land, override it’s instincts, face reality. Orni.. ornith..’

‘Ornithologists,’ Donna offers.

‘Yeah, that’s it! They tell us that Superb fairywrens have stopped feeding Cuckoos. Instead, they kick them out of their nests and feed their own young… acting against their hardwiring. These guys are heroes, man! They’ve shown us change IS possible… that behaviour doesn’t have to be de-ter-mined all the time. Know what I mean?!’

Don runs a hand through his Tucker Carlson quiff. ‘So, this Superb fairywren of which you speak - it tells us we don’t have to buy things we don’t need?’

‘Yeah, but much, much more than that.’

‘You’ll have to be quick, Farhod. Our next guest is waiting.’

‘OK. People can see the conveyor belt. They want to get off, but don’t know how. They might be wired to shrink from life, retreat from love and stuff, play the victim, think they’re just another brick in the wall… as in the song. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It takes one bird to stop feeding the Cuckoo. It takes just one to say – ‘Enough! I’m gonna choose something different.’ That’s why Superb fairywren is catching on, without the internet. Our hard-wiring isn’t us. We want the TRUTH about the world we live in. Lies really STINK, don’t they?’  

And, with that he smiles apologetically and stands to leave. ‘Sorry, I’ve gone on way too long…’

The audience, as well, is on its feet, applauding. He lifts a finger to scratch his forehead. The gesture is an awkward one, with no deliberation or significance, but it is duplicated by them all - each member, young and old, of the assembled crowd.